The next five played RF, CF, CF, CF. Gee, do you think CF has the best OF? Wow! And Gardner makes the top five because he's a CF being compared to LF, usually among the weakest defenders.

Numbers one and five have negative dWAR. MLB announcer, former relief pitcher Mitch Williams, emphatically and repeatedly assured us this morning that Asdrubal Cabrera was by far the best defensive SS in AL in 2011.

I ran a query on bb-ref: "for 2011, Played 50% of games at SS, (requiring Qualified for league batting title), sorted by greatest runs_fielding":

Cabrera was number 16 with minus 6 runs. In double figures plus:

Troy Tulowitzki 13
Alex Gonzalez 11
Jhonny Peralta 10

Remember Cabrera was selected the top defensive player regardless of position, not just the top SS.

I then ran the query for players of any defensive position. Tulowitzki was number 11. Top three:
Brett Gardner 34 LF
Carlos Lee 21 LF
Mike Stanton 20 RF

Mickey Mantle #932 out of 1,101: 14.24%.Maybe when I analyse Mickey's PA that is something I can figure out: why a batter with great power and great speed had so few doubles.Among 81 batters with 350 home runs through 2010 (Ortiz has 378 through 2011 but I don't have that data yet for all players):

Carlos Delgado is #1: 23.7%.The Mick is #78. Only Killbrew, Howard and Cash are lower, none of them with any speed. For 15 of these 81 sluggers (18.5%) at least 20% of their hits were doubles. The obvious answer is that the Yankees instructed Mantle to not try for doubles and triples unless he could make it standing. This would protect his increasingly fragile legs.Can anyone document this or document some other explanation?

Bernie Williams is way overrated because he happened to have played center field. Had Williams played a corner, he would have zero support. Williams only won a gold glove after Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Edmonds left the AL.

In stupid defensive WAR Bernie Williams is dead last among CF with 5,000 PA. I don't have much confidence in defensive stats but those into them won't get any support for Williams.

Why is the font size so small? Is the HoF ashamed of this junk committee? And where are the candidates listed?

For Ron Santo, since I do not trust defensive numbers, I looked at OPS+. Santo is a solid #7 on the all time list for third basemen since 1903. Click http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/epgYS

Santo probably suffered in his original 15 years of voting because he was sandwiched in between Mathews and Schmidt who are the top two batters at third base.

Another part of his problem has been the 1969 collapse of his Cubs and his numbers in the second half and especially in September, which suck. As usual, Santo was much better at home, which also detracts, and Santo was lousy in September throughout his career.

Some perspective on Santo's OPS+ rank:
7 Santo
16 Sal Bando (the really forgotten Italian third basemen who actually won championships)
47 Pie Traynor (.320 BA but that was when many batted .300)
54 Brooks Robinson (great glove but his batting was much less than perceived at the time)

MVP top five:
Santo:
1967 4
1969 5

Bando
1971 2
1973 4
1974 3

I won't be upset if Santo gets into the Hall of Fame but I sure won't be upset if he does not. Sentiment is on Santo's side, especially with the anniversary of his death.

Fifteen years of voting by those who saw a player is more than enough of a chance. Allie Reynolds was very close in his most recent vote by the regular veterans committee and now he gets yet another bite of the apple with this junk committee. Enough already. In ERA+ among pitchers with at least 2,000 innings since 1903 Reynolds is tied at #130. 130! What the heck are we talking about? Click: http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/P8hl1

Is Dick (Richie) Allen being considered? MVP. I'm OK with him.

Minnie Minoso is borderline HoF but the guy was not a HoF player.

No also to Kaat, Tiant and John. Huge NO to Hodges and Maris. If anyone other than Santo and Allen gets in it's a joke.